The American Race: A Linguistic Classification and Ethnographic Description of the Native Tribes of North and South AmericaBrinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
History
The American Race: A Linguistic Classification and Ethnographic Description of the Native Tribes of North and South America
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Indians; Indians -- Languages
Such domestic arrangements seem strange to us, but they did not exclude
either conjugal or parental affection. On the contrary, the presence of
such sentiments has impressed travelers among even the rudest tribes, as
the Eskimos, the Yumas and the hordes of the Chaco;[55] and Miss Alice
Fletcher tells me she has constantly noted such traits in her studies of
life in the wigwam. The husband and father will often undergo severe
privations for his wife and children.
The error to which I have referred of classifying the natives into wild
and civilized tribes has led to regarding the one as agricultural, and
the other as depending exclusively on hunting and fishing. Such was
not the case. The Americans were inclined to agriculture in nearly all
regions where it was profitable. Maize was cultivated both north and
south to the geographical extent of its productive culture; beans,
squashes, pumpkins, and potatoes were assiduously planted in suitable
latitudes; the banana was rapidly accepted after its introduction, even
by tribes who had never seen a white man; cotton for clothing and tobacco
as a luxury were staple crops among very diverse stocks. The Iroquois,
Algonkins and Muskokis of the Atlantic coast tilled large fields, and
depended upon their harvests for the winter supplies. The difference
between them and the sedentary Mexicans or Mayas in this respect was not
so wide as has been represented.
It was a serious misfortune for the Americans that the fauna of the
continent did not offer any animal which could be domesticated for a
beast of draft or burden. There is no doubt but that the horse existed
on the continent contemporaneously with post-glacial man; and some
palæontologists are of opinion that the European and Asian horses were
descendants of the American species;[56] but for some mysterious reason
the genus became extinct in the New World many generations before its
discovery. The dog, domesticated from various species of the wolf, was
a poor substitute. He aided somewhat in hunting, and in the north as
an animal of draft; but was of little general utility. The lama in the
Cordilleras in South America was prized principally for his hair, and
was also utilized for burdens, but not for draft.[57] Nor were there any
animals which could be domesticated for food or milk. The buffalo is
hopelessly wild, and the peccary, or American hog, is irreclaimable in
its love of freedom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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